


Head Held High

by smileybagel



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Brief character study, Canonical Character Death, Drabble, Drift Bond, F/M, Love, acceptance of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 15:38:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smileybagel/pseuds/smileybagel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their final moments fly by them like their first drift, fragmented and confusing, but coming together to form the bond that has kept them fighting all these years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Head Held High

There was water everywhere, filling every crack in the hull and every space between the cogs and wires that made their conn-pod come alive. Sparks lit up the water as it rushed around them, and the pressure was getting worse with every passing second. Not the water pressure itself, but the knowledge that it was the end. Voices came over the communications systems, gargled and quickly fading out as more and more equipment became damaged, but the fear was present and obvious.

Sasha drowned out the noise (irony, ja?) and fought the water to look at her husband in their final moments, and through the drift she knew he was fighting to look at her too. He was not struggling against death and neither was she, so they spent their last moments sending flashes of memories through the drift.

Their first winter together as husband and wife, their deployment as border guards, then seeing the kaiju make landfall. Sasha smiled even as water filled her lungs, and tried to keep her memory clear as oxygen left her brain. She sent the thoughts of their entry to the Jaeger Academy, their graduation, seeing Cherno Alpha for the first time and taking down their first kaiju.

For a second, she thought she felt Cherno send bits of excitement through the neural connection, and to be honest, she would believe it if that actually happened. Next to her, Aleksis went limp, no longer willing to squirm in his harness and waste what energy he had left. The end was here and that was all that mattered.

With their final conscious thoughts, Sasha and Aleksis thought of their first kiss and reached out for each other, and Leatherback reached for them, too.


End file.
